


true north

by bakakateme



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Chronological, Fluff, Getting Together, Growing Up, M/M, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, kagehina if you squint, mentions of social anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28097835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakakateme/pseuds/bakakateme
Summary: if tsukishima kei is the moon, in all of its ever-shifting phases, then yamaguchi tadashi is the patient, steady stars that burn brighter each year.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	true north

he can hear his heart beating, so fast that he’s almost afraid it will beat right out of his chest.

_that’s unrealistic_ , he scolds himself. because when has tsukishima kei been anything other than realistic, analytic? cold and distant?

“don’t you feel anything?” the neighbor’s kid once asked, incredulous. “are you even human?”

his fingers curl, and for the first time, he doesn’t flinch when another hand squeezes back.

* * *

_you’re like the moon, tsukki_ , tadashi would say, his smile lighting up his whole face. _my moon._

tsukishima’s chest felt tight, but he refused to let it show.

_a new moon_ , he replied bluntly, but the other boy only laughed.

tsukki wanted to keep hearing that laugh for the rest of his life.

tadashi truly believed that tsukki was good, was pure, like the glowing moon hung heavy in the night sky. tsukki didn’t have the heart to tell him that the moon was littered with crevices and craters. it was defaced. imperfect. cracked and crumbling at the edges.

if tsukki was the moon, tadashi was a star, sculpted from the constellations sprinkled across his cheeks and the blinding, beautiful brightness of his grin. the one that could’ve been a sun, but chose not to, god only knows why.

his north star, guiding him home.

* * *

he tries to speak, but the only thing that comes out is a curl of smoke, floating into the winter air.

tadashi turns to look at him, smiling. always smiling.

tsukki’s cheeks feel hot. he convinces himself it’s because of the cold, but he can’t deny the warmth spreading through him as tadashi tugs him towards the christmas light display, childish excitement on his face.

the lights are gorgeous.

“the lights are boring,” he hears himself say.

you’re gorgeous.

“you’re boring,” tadashi snipes back, but there’s no real anger behind his words. “let’s get hot chocolate.”

tsukki pays, because he doesn’t know how else to apologize. even if he did, tadashi wouldn’t understand why he was apologizing. to him, that was just how tsukki was.

tadashi was unraveling tsukishima, one day at a time, and he didn’t even know it.

* * *

“the cherry trees are blossoming,” tadashi tells him, excitement evident even through the phone. maybe normal people would be disappointed, annoyed, ashamed when seeing there were only three numbers saved in their phones.

tsukki sees tadashi’s name and feels awe.

“i’ll pack a picnic,” he says, hoping with a desperation he shoves deep, deep down that tadashi is smiling.

he gets to the cherry blossom grove an hour early. _to get a good spot_ , he tells himself. because he’s weirdly and insanely competitive.

the spike in his heartrate when he sees tadashi’s joy tells him otherwise.

* * *

“tsukki’s 190 cm,” tadashi brags, surprisingly shameless for someone who isn’t even talking about his own height.

the orange-haired garden gnome lets out an offended squawk while kageyama tobio has to do a double take. tsukki feels viciously vindicated by the fact that he has startled the King, but he’d rather not stick around for his reaction.

”shut up, yamaguchi,” he says, and even though the short guy splutters at the rudeness, tsukki is confident that tadashi knows him well enough to understand his meaning.

”sorry, tsukki!”

* * *

tsukki and tadashi had been placed in different homerooms their first year. tadashi assured him he would be fine.

the second week rolls around and tsukki finds tadashi trying desperatelyto control his breathing in the men’s bathroom. 

he swears, unintentionally. he’s not frustrated at tadashi, but the other boy flinches anyways.

“next time tell me when this happens,” tsukki says, maybe a tad too harshly.

tadashi looks up at him, eyes a little too bright, and tsukki feels the gates of his restraint slowly creaking open.

“i’ll come get you,” he promises. “it’s not much more of a bother than you usually are, anyways.”

tadashi lets out a watery laugh, then, wiping at his face, and tsukki has to swallow hard.

he doesn’t know how else to show tadashi how he’s feeling, but the other boy seems to understand anyways.

* * *

tadashi has a firm grip on his collar, his brows scrunched and mouth twisted into a scowl.

”what other reason do you need, besides your own pride?” he spits, practically vibrating in anger.

it’s so impossibly different from how tadashi normally is that tsukki can’t help himself. he laughs. he laughs and laughs, shoulders shaking as the rusty sound spills into the night sky, his voice unused to expressing this sound.

”when did you get so cool?” he asks, half incredulous, half craving to thread his fingers through the others boy’s mess of hair and wipe away the angry tears that had formed.

tadashi blinks at him, and for what seems like the first time in ages, tsukishima lets himself smile without restraint. 

tadashi’s changed, a little. he likes it. 

* * *

“tsukki! gimme your number!” koganegawa shouts, and reluctantly tsukki enters his contact information into the setter’s phone.

he’d never admit it, but maybe the training camp was... fun. it was physically stimulating, at the very least. he’s sure he’ll be sore for days.

tadashi is at his side, like always, and he breathes a sigh of relief at the familiarity of it.

what is not familiar is tadashi’s offended glare as his dark eyes shoot daggers at a cheerfully oblivious kogane.

he chooses to ignore it and instead ribs yamaguchi about how “i’ve been gone for so long, and you still don’t know how to fix that little cowlick of yours?”

the same thing he felt every time he saw tadashi and yachi laughing in the corner of the gym was reflected in tadashi’s eyes and the downward slant of his mouth, but tsukki refuses to get his hopes up.

his old friends, the uncomfortable heat in his ears and slight pain in his heart, are back.

* * *

high school passes by in a blur.

in their third year, yamaguchi is made captain, much to the disappointment of a certain freak duo.

“come on! being captain would’ve given me the edge i needed to beat bakageyama!” hinata loudly complains for what must have been the fifth time that week. he dodges a well-aimed smack to his head as his setter counterpart yells back.

“don’t call me that, dumbass! besides, you’re only mad because i’m winning right now! and that’s why i should be the captain!”

tsukki laughs, finally comfortable enough around his team to be a little less cold, and his head feels strangely light. he’s satisfied. content, even, because he knows tadashi deserves this. every time he addresses the first years, there’s a proud flush on his cheeks, right beneath the scattered stardust of his freckles.

tsukki’s hand goes up, almost on its own, as if to trace the familiar contours of tadashi’s face. he pauses and then pushes up his glasses instead, as his fellow third years continue to bicker in the background.

tadashi strolls back into the gym, done with his water break.

“what’s next, captain?” tsukki asks, not caring if it’s flying drills or running drills or even finger pushups, because he gets to see the smile that splits tadashi’s face at the title and oh, he’s so fucked, he’s _been_ fucked and all he wants to do right now is press tadashi’s laughing mouth to his.

but he has running drills to do, and so he runs and tries to clear the spun-sugar daydreams from his head because he is tsukishima kei and this isn’t like him at all.

* * *

what he failed to realize was that he wasn’t the old tsukishima kei anymore, the one who said he was mean because he had a reputation but really just didn’t know any other way to speak.

he was a tsukishima kei molded and changed by yamaguchi tadashi and the glowing, infinite galaxies he saw every time he looked into the other boy’s eyes, and that night, tsukishima looked up at his bedroom ceiling and finally allowed himself to wish for something more.

* * *

“i thought my feelings began in high school, but in reality, that first day you began following me around after i scared your bullies away, i think i knew.”

“knew what?” tadashi whispers.

“that i would love you.” he responds, simply and concisely, and maybe a little too bluntly because he can see kageyama shaking his head with familiar disapproval out of the corner of his eye but tadashi is beaming at him and finally, finally tsukki can bring his hands up to cradle his face like the most delicate of porcelain and plant his lips squarely on the other man’s.

“you may... kiss the groom, i guess,” the officiator says, sounding vaguely annoyed, but tsukki just smirks into the kiss and tadashi laughs his beautiful laugh right back, just like he always does.

that same old dislodged ache in tsukki’s chest grows and grows and grows, until finally it bursts into a shower of nebulas and meteors, coursing through his veins because though he is cracked and crumbling and nowhere near whole, he wholly belongs to the slim boy with that one stubborn piece of hair and the perpetually sparkling eyes.

just this once, tsukki will admit that he was wrong, for tadashi was not leading him home; he is home.

**Author's Note:**

> give me attention  
> [ my tellonym ](https://tellonym.me/bakakateme)


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